The only song on this list I don't care for in any shape or form is Waterfalls.

I'm not surprised at all to see Misery performing so well. It's such a great (And sadly, forgotten by most people compared to the far inferior Runaway Train) song. We just all know what happened on Bad Hair Day

I love Soul Asylum. It's definitely "Misery" for me. I think the reason why I never started hating "Syndicated Inc." is because of the original being one of my favorite songs. The parody is really sub-par but I still love the instrumentation (especially the accordion solo )

I'm not really sure where you're coming up with this notion that Al has an "obsession" with hip hop/rap. First of all, Al parodies what's popular on the charts. If a rap song is popular and he has a good idea for a parody, he's going to pull the trigger on it. I hardly think that qualifies as an obsession. Also, beginning with "Bad Hair Day," there have been 30 parodies on Al's albums. Of those, I count six rap parodies (on average, one per album). Again, I don't think that's enough to constitute an obsession.

I don't know if obsession is the right way to put it. I understand that Al parodies what's popular on the "charts". It's just my opinion that the majority of Al's demographic of fans don't listen to r&b/hip hop/rap. Thus, when these songs started to become more prevalent in the late 90s and 2000s, Al parodied them but the majority of his fans weren't familiar with the originals before he released the parodies. So, I lament not being as familiar with the originals as I used to be, because of his parody direction.

OK, fair enough. I'm not sure about the demographics of Al's fans. Most of them seem to be younger, which would probably be the prevalent age group that listens to rap/hip hop/R&B, but I've seen a decent number of people on here saying the same thing you are. I doubt that the majority of Al's fans are unfamiliar with rap/hip hop/R&B parody targets though. I don't care for that type of music either, so I've had the same problem when it's come to some of the parody targets.